Monday, February 27, 2017

You know, I really hadn't meant to put
this off for damn near three weeks like this. I really didn't.

Real life's a funny thing, though, and
I had a few things to deal with there this month. For now, though,
it'll have to be a story for another time.

So, on with the game. Since I think I
got everything I needed last time, I talked to the guy who said he
was going to show us out safely. When he does, there's a cutscene
between Dagger and Zidane where Dagger acts like she's actually
starting to fall for Zidane, saying that she kind of likes having him
and Vivi protecting her as they take the elevator down to the base
level of Lindblum Castle.

When they get there, Vivi's waiting
there, saying that Regent Cid has gone off to delay the Alexandrian
soldiers so they can escape. When he explains where the party needs
to go, there's a mandatory ATE that shows the Lindblum soldiers doing
everything they can to delay their Alexandrian counterparts. In the
course of that, we find that Brhane and her crew seem to be going on
a sea cruise of some sort themselves, presumably to the Outer
Continent as well. Brhane's team actually has ships to load up and
go on, so I guess they're doing it Christopher Columbus style.

Zidane and the rest of our heroes are
going a more sneaky route through an excavation site. Turns out,
it's in the Qu's Marsh, which is kind of a good thing, since it gives
us a chance to get Quina back, which will be handy. Thing about
Quina is that the minigame associated with this character is one that
requires decent mobility, which is something that Quina has a decided
lack of. Of course, me complaining about that is pretty much a pot
calling a kettle black, since I've got kind of the same build and
shit mobility as this blue mage.

I bring it up because it's kind of hard
to avoid the frog-catching minigame in the course of trying to find
the path to the excavation site. Had I been playing at a more
reasonable hour, I might have put some effort into it this time, but
I'm doing it more my normal way instead. That means I just gotta go
on with the plot. The trail we're looking for is on the east side of
this map, and when we do find it, Quina catches a whiff of different
frogs and somehow manages to go to warp on the rest of the party for
a minute, busting open the chain meant to block the entrance to the
excavation site.

Once we get into the tunnels, we're
jumped by a boss monster with a mechanic very similar to the giant
robot spider from Final Fantasy 8, only it's way easier to both get
caught and get away from this one. Didn't happen to catch it's name,
though. The second time I fought it, I got Zidane killed by mistake,
but fortunately, it really wasn't an issue, because I managed to
avoid a third round with it.

After escaping the mechanical beast,
the party runs into Lani, who says she set that other thing to stop
the party. Her orders were to get the Royal Pendant from Dagger,
even if it means killing her in the process, she explains, before
attacking the party. She's got some decent stuff on her, including a
Coral Sword for Steiner. Once I got all of it, I just focused on
beating the crap out of her while she insults the party. Gotta say,
I'm rather enjoying playing this game on the big new screen I got for
my birthday a few years back now. I remember a few issues back when
I was saying that Dagger was actually kinda cute for a video game
love interest. Lani ain't half bad looking for a villain, either,
based on the last shot of the boss fight with her this time. Punchy
wasn't with her this time, but he'll be turning back up soon enough.

After the fight, Lani runs off, saying
we haven't seen the last of her, and the party continues into the
maze. Turns out, this is a place called Fossil Roo, and we'll be
traveling by way of gargants again. This time, they're untamed,
which means a slightly different mechanic. There's a dude there who
explains how it works, but I'll get more into that next time, when
it'll be more relevant. Hopefully, I